Hard butters, which have been developed as alternatives to cacao butter being a raw material fat or oil for chocolates, are roughly classified into a tempering type hard butter and a non-tempering type hard butter, depending on crystallization properties of triacylglycerol. The non-tempering type hard butter does not require a tempering treatment, which requires strict temperature control in use, and is excellent in workability, and hence is widely used as a hard butter for confectionery production and bread production.
As the non-tempering type hard butter, there is known a lauric acid-based hard butter to be produced using, as a main raw material, a lauric acid-rich fat or oil such as coconut oil or palm kernel oil. The lauric acid-based hard butter is characterized by having a sharp and satisfactory melt-in-the-mouth feeling, but has low compatibility with cacao butter and cannot be blended with a large amount of cacao butter. Therefore, a chocolate produced using the lauric acid-based hard butter is poor in taste and flavor.
Meanwhile, with increasing health consciousness in recent years, low-calorie and low-fat edible fats or oils have been desired, and it is effective to use a fat or oil containing diacylglycerols at high concentrations. Hitherto, there has been reported, as a diacylglycerol-containing hard butter, a non-lauric acid-based hard butter including a bloom-preventing agent that includes a diglyceride containing one or more constituent fatty acids including a saturated fatty acid or trans unsaturated fatty acid having from 16 to 18 carbon atoms in one molecule (Patent Document 1).